Homing abilities of the tropical primitively eusocial paper wasp Ropalidia marginata

Mandal, Souvik; Gadagkar, Raghavendra

doi:10.1007/s00359-015-1019-2

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Foragers often cut large prey items into pieces and bring those pieces to their nest in multiple bouts. These wasps typically forage within about 500 m of their nests (Mandal and Gadagkar, 2015) and experienced foragers possess comprehensive spatial familiarity with their foraging landscapes (Mandal et al, 2017). As these wasps forage solitarily, each forager has to acquire this spatial familiarity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting older, getting smarter: Ontogeny of the foraging behaviour in the tropical social waspRopalidia marginata

Mandal

Brahma

2019

Journal of Experimental Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Desert ants and honey bees start foraging when they are a few days old, and subsequently increase their foraging effort and the amount of foraged food. This could be an optimal strategy for scavenger/gatherer animals inhabiting landscapes with fewer features. However, animals inhabiting cluttered landscapes, especially predatory animals, may require substantial familiarity with foraging landscapes to forage efficiently. They may acquire such spatial familiarity with increasing age/experience, and eventually reduce their foraging effort without compromising on foraging success/efficiency. To check whether this holds for the individually foraging predatory tropical paper-wasp Ropalidia marginata, we recorded the number and duration of all foraging trips, the identity of foraged materials, and the directions of outbound and inbound flights (with respect to the nest) of known-age wasps for three consecutive days from three naturally occurring colonies; thus, we measured behavioural profiles of wasps of various ages, and not from the same wasp throughout its lifespan. Wasps increased their foraging duration rapidly until about 4 weeks of age, during which they rarely brought food, although some wasps brought building material and water. Thereafter, their foraging duration started decreasing. Nevertheless, their foraging success/efficiency in bringing food kept on increasing. With age, wasps developed individual directional preferences for outbound and inbound flights, indicating the development of spatial memory for rewarding sites. Also, the angular difference between their outbound and subsequent inbound flights gradually increased, indicating older wasps may have followed tortuous foraging routes. High investment in early life to acquire familiarity with foraging landscapes and using that later to perform efficient foraging could be an optimal strategy for individually foraging animals inhabiting feature-rich landscapes.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Getting older, getting smarter: Ontogeny of the foraging behaviour in the tropical social waspRopalidia marginata

Mandal

Brahma

2019

Journal of Experimental Biology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…If a prey is too big to carry, they cut the prey into pieces and bring those pieces to their nest in multiple bouts. They typically forage within about 500 m from their nests (Mandal and Gadagkar, 2015) and experienced foragers possess comprehensive spatial familiarity with their foraging landscape (Mandal et al, 2017). Each forager has to acquire this spatial familiarity as they forage solitarily.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ontogeny of familiarity with foraging landscape and foraging abilities in the tropical social waspRopalidia marginata

Mandal

Brahma

Gadagkar

2018

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Possessing spatial familiarity with their foraging landscape may enable animals to reduce foraging effort without compromising on foraging benefits. For animals inhabiting feature-rich landscapes, spatial familiarity can increase with increasing age/experience. To check whether this holds for individually foraging tropical social wasp Ropalidia marginata, we recorded the number and duration of all foraging trips, the identity of the materials brought to the nest (building material, water or food) and the directions of outbound and inbound flights (respective to their nests) of known-age foragers from three natural colonies, each for three consecutive days. The average trip duration and time spent daily in foraging increased rapidly until about first four weeks of their life, during which they rarely brought food to their nest, although many of them brought building material and water. Thereafter, their average as well as per day duration of foraging trip started decreasing gradually. Nevertheless, their foraging efficiency and success for food kept on increasing monotonically with age. These results suggest that older wasps were more efficient in foraging despite spending less time doing so. With increasing age, wasps developed individual preferences for the direction of their outbound flights, increased directionality of their inbound trips as well as the angular difference between their outbound and subsequent inbound flights, indicating development of spatial memory. We conclude that wasps acquire familiarity with their foraging landscape in their initial foraging phase and gradually develop robust memory for rewarding sites and routes to those sites, which enables them to increase their foraging capabilities.SUMMARY STATEMENTContrary to insects inhabiting less-featured landscapes, tropical social wasps invest weeks to get familiar with foraging landscapes during their early foraging lives. This eventually enables them to increase foraging gain with reduced effort.

show abstract

Homing in a tropical social wasp: role of spatial familiarity, motivation and age

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We captured foragers of the tropical social wasp Ropalidia marginata from their nests and displaced them at different distances and directions. Wasps displaced within their probable foraging grounds returned to their nests on the day of release although they oriented randomly upon release; however, wasps fed before release returned sooner, displaying nest-ward orientation. When displaced to places far from their nests, thus expected to be unfamiliar, only a third returned on the day of release showing nest-ward orientation; others oriented randomly and either returned on subsequent days or never. When confined within mosquito-net tents since eclosion and later released to places close to their nests (but unfamiliar), even fed wasps oriented randomly, and only older wasps returned, taking longer time. Thus, contrary to insects inhabiting less-featured landscapes, R. marginata foragers appear to have thorough familiarity with their foraging grounds that enables them to orient and home efficiently after passive displacement. Their initial orientation is, however, determined by an interaction of the information acquired from surrounding landscape and their physiological motivation. With age, they develop skills to home from unfamiliar places. Homing behaviour in insects appears to be influenced by evolutionarily conserved mechanisms and the landscape in which they have evolved.

show abstract

Homing abilities of the tropical primitively eusocial paper wasp Ropalidia marginata

Cited by 5 publications

References 23 publications

Getting older, getting smarter: Ontogeny of the foraging behaviour in the tropical social waspRopalidia marginata

Getting older, getting smarter: Ontogeny of the foraging behaviour in the tropical social waspRopalidia marginata

Ontogeny of familiarity with foraging landscape and foraging abilities in the tropical social waspRopalidia marginata

Homing in a tropical social wasp: role of spatial familiarity, motivation and age

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About